Build Your Online Store: Use Themes or Go Headless (2024)

With the highest-converting checkout and flexible options for every size of business, Shopify stores sell more products, lower your costs, and save you time.

Built into every store

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Cheetah fast.
Ridiculously reliable.

With a 99.99% uptime rate and 300 points of presence worldwide, Shopify’s infrastructure won’t leave your customers hanging.

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The world’s
best checkout

Shopify’s checkout converts a whole 15% better on average than other commerce platforms. Which means more sales for you.

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The magic of AI
in your corner

Generate store headlines, product descriptions, chat replies, and blog posts that sell—all with a little help from Shopify Magic.

Choose how you want to build Choosehowyouwanttobuild

Shopify themes

Shopify themes are made for commerce

Every theme comes with selling and conversion features built right in. Just pick a theme that reflects your brand, then make it your own.

CraftBuild Your Online Store: Use Themes or Go Headless (69)

SenseBuild Your Online Store: Use Themes or Go Headless (71)

OriginBuild Your Online Store: Use Themes or Go Headless (73)

StudioBuild Your Online Store: Use Themes or Go Headless (75)

DawnBuild Your Online Store: Use Themes or Go Headless (77)

SpotlightBuild Your Online Store: Use Themes or Go Headless (79)

CraveBuild Your Online Store: Use Themes or Go Headless (81)

TasteBuild Your Online Store: Use Themes or Go Headless (83)

RideBuild Your Online Store: Use Themes or Go Headless (85)

RefreshBuild Your Online Store: Use Themes or Go Headless (87)

ColorblockBuild Your Online Store: Use Themes or Go Headless (89)

PublisherBuild Your Online Store: Use Themes or Go Headless (91)

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Put your own spin onthemes

Add your branding and product videos. Customize your colors. Make your store feel likehome.

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Drag and drop

Effortlessly add pages and switch up the layout with Shopify’s online storeeditor.

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Sell worldwide orwholesale

Show different products and pricing to international and B2B customers with contextual storefronts.

The custom content customers need

Do more with commerce apps

With 8000+ apps to choose from, the Shopify App Store has whatever extras your store needs—from added features to custom product options.

Plus all the features youneed, right out of the box

Powered by the best checkout in the world, Shopify converts shoppers into buyers 15% better on average than other platforms.

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Help shoppers imagine how your products fit into their liveswith videos, 3D visualization tools, and other rich media.

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Give your customers an easy way to find exactly what they’relooking for.

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Let customers select which country and what currency they’reshopping in.

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Encourage customers to fill their carts by recommending moreproducts they’ll love.

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Instantly conjure up product descriptions, store headlines,chat replies, and blog posts with Shopify Magic.

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Shopify stores are optimized for speed and accessibility,so everyone can shop and nobody has to wait.

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Everything’s designed responsively, so things look goodno matter what device customers use to visit your store.

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Ready to get going?

Start your free trial

Custom options

If you can imagine it, you can build it

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OPT /01Go LiquidGet the best of both worlds. Build your own one-of-a-kind store in no time with Liquid, then leave the rest to us.
OPT /02Go headlessGet full control. Tap into Shopify's APIs and developer tools to build your own bespoke store, integrated with your preferred stack.

Go Liquid

Create a store as unique as your brand. Leave the maintenance to us.

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Build fast and easy

With Liquid, Shopify’s supercharged templating language, you can quickly create a custom store with the exact look and feel you need. And it works right alongside old faves like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and JSON.

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Speed. Security. Reliability.

Monitoring uptime, optimizing for speed, keeping bots at bay—we handle it all. So whether you’re doing a big drop or launching in a new country, you know your store is safe, reliable, and running fast.

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An editor everyone canuse

Let each team do what they do best. Any team can edit content, launch landing pages, and even update the design. Which leaves your developers free to focus on the big stuff. No bottlenecks. No gatekeeping.

Ready to roll your own theme?

Go headless

Choose your own stack

Get exactly the store your business needs. With the flexibility to use tech you already love.

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Battle-hardened APIs

Shopify’s Storefront API serves millions of queries/min and is deployed globally at the edge. So customers around the world experience snappy load speeds, no matter what device they shop on. And with no rate limits, you can run big sales events without throttling or unexpected bills.

Dig into the docs
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Launch in half the time with Hydrogen

Fast-track development with Hydrogen, Shopify’s React-based toolkit. Skip the setup with flexible UI components, hooks, and utilities—all optimized for commerce and preconfigured to work with Shopify’s APIs.

More about Hydrogen
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Host for free on Oxygen

Instantly deploy your Hydrogen store using Oxygen, our free global hosting solution, which is available on all Shopify plans except Starter. Or host with your preferred provider.

More about Oxygen

Ready to go custom?

Join millions of merchants on Shopify

All kinds of businesses. All kinds of stores. All built to sell.

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Shopify allowed us to build the most playful customer experiences while maintaining complete control of our development process.

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Loading speed is flawless and instant, on mobile and desktop—providing a seamless experience for customers globally, regardless of device.

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We love our theme. It’s simple to navigate. It’s easy to update. My dev team moves at laser speed. If we have an idea, it’s implemented same-day.

Build your store on Shopify

Start free trial

Build Your Online Store: Use Themes or Go Headless (2024)

FAQs

Why go headless on Shopify? ›

Going headless enables you to create multiple front-end experiences for different customer touch points. Your web, mobile, voice, and point of sale (POS) front-ends can talk to a single backend system via the API layer, which allows emerging brands to be truly omnichannel and rapidly expand internationally.

How much is Shopify headless? ›

How Much Does Shopify Headless Cost?
ItemEstimated Cost
UI/UX Designing$20,000 – $30,000
Integration and Custom Development$20,000 – $60,000
Frontend Hosting (for 1M visits)Approx. $2000
TOTAL$42,000 – $1,22,000
1 more row
Feb 29, 2024

Can you use Shopify as a headless CMS? ›

Yes, Shopify can easily be used with a headless CMS like Prismic, allowing e-commerce businesses to design their custom frontend solutions while still taking advantage of Shopify's excellent e-commerce backend and features (product details management, inventory management, etc).

Which Shopify theme is best for general store? ›

Best Free Shopify Themes for General Store
  • Refresh.
  • Sense.
  • Craft.
  • Crave.
  • Spotlight.
  • Sign Up for a Shopify Account.
  • Customize Your Store Design.
  • Add Products to Your Store.
May 25, 2024

What are the drawbacks of headless commerce? ›

Headless e-commerce systems can be more complex to implement and manage compared to traditional, monolithic systems. This complexity arises from the decoupling of front end and back end systems, requiring a higher level of coordination and technical expertise to ensure seamless integration and operation.

Is headless CMS bad for SEO? ›

Myth #5: Headless CMS Slows Down Your Website

Headless architecture can actually improve website performance. By separating the content layer from the presentation layer, headless systems can deliver content faster and more efficiently. And this is an important factor for SEO and user experience.

What is better than Shopify? ›

The Best Shopify Alternatives of 2024
  • Shift4Shop: Best for sellers on a budget.
  • BigCommerce: Best for established businesses.
  • Squarespace: Best for visual designers.
  • Wix: Best for do-it-yourself (DIY) sellers.
  • Ecwid: Best for existing websites.
  • WooCommerce: Best for WordPress users.
  • Sellfy: Best for print-on-demand.
Mar 25, 2024

What is the cost of running a Shopify store? ›

How much does it cost to have a Shopify store?
Shopify PlansCost per monthOnline credit card rates (per transaction)
Basic Shopify$292.9% + 30 cents
Shopify$792.6% + 30 cents
Advanced Shopify$2992.4% + 30 cents

How much should I pay for Shopify? ›

Shopify Tiered Pricing and Plans
LiteAdvanced
PricingINR 20 per monthINR 30,164 per month
Build Online StoreNo - add a Shopify button to existing site
Storage and BandwidthN/AUnlimited
Online Credit Card Processing Fees2.9% plus around INR 24 per transaction2.4% plus around INR 24 per transaction
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Mar 22, 2023

What are the headless limitations of Shopify? ›

You will lose access to some Shopify apps and themes

Going headless means you no longer use Shopify's theming engine or app proxy, limiting your access to Shopify's inbuilt themes and apps and the add-ons that rely on Shopify themes.

Is there any free headless CMS? ›

Payload is a free and open-source headless CMS aimed sharply at providing the best, developer-first experience possible to build out APIs and admin UI.

Are headless CMS worth it? ›

YES. The flexibility, scalability, and efficiency gains offered by headless CMS platforms are hard to ignore. These benefits not only streamline content management processes but also significantly enhance user experience and improve SEO rankings, which is crucial in today's digital age.

Which Shopify theme loads fastest? ›

Fastest Shopify themes for 2024:

Booster – the fastest Shopify theme. Electro – fast and powerful Shopify theme for electronics and high-tech stores. Mavon – lightning-Fast Shopify theme for clothes, electronics, crafts and more. Shoptimized – fast Shopify theme for top conversions.

What is the most used Shopify theme? ›

Dawn is one of the most popular Shopify themes because of its minimalist style, which lets your product images take center stage. It's ideal for apparel and fashion luxury brands. With its media-forward product, you can use large images to showcase your products.

What are the benefits of headless? ›

Headless commerce allows for more scalable systems, as changes to the front-end can be made without affecting the back-end commerce functionality. This means that businesses can scale their ecommerce site as needed without worrying about disrupting their core commerce operations.

When should I go headless eCommerce? ›

Determine if headless commerce is right for your business.
  1. You're a content-driven brand.
  2. Your brand is experience-driven and needs the ability to implement personalization, AI or AR capabilities.
  3. You're looking to create seamless digital experiences across multiple customer touchpoints and devices.

Is headless commerce worth it? ›

But one of the most attractive benefits of headless eCommerce above the others is that it allows your CMS to connect to a greater number of apps and devices. In turn, this makes your purchasing options more flexible, and empowers customers to shop with greater ease.

Why would you use a headless CMS? ›

Headless CMS Benefits. A headless CMS is a powerful and flexible way to manage content. It allows for faster editing experiences and the ability to manage content for multiple channels. It offers developers the flexibility to choose their own frontend tooling and makes it easier to scale.

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